70. The power of vocal deepening

Our voice can be a powerful tool for healing - if we connect with it on a deep level. In this episode, the talented, award-winning artist Haji Basim explains his work around vocal deepening and how it helps us connect with our authentic self, heal from trauma and feel joy!

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Transcript

Okay are you ready for Haji? In this divine episode, you'll also be treated to some gorgeous singing and I won't ruin the vibe for you with my outro. So at the end of this chat, take that beautiful energy from Haji's singing voice straight into your day. Okay, let's go.

Sally:

Haji Basim welcome to That Voice Podcast. It's so great to have you here.

Haji:

It's wonderful to be here, Sally. Thank you for having me.

Sally:

And being my very first interview for the new season of the podcast, I'm going to dive straight in there. Haji, I would love to know what does your voice mean to you?

Haji:

My voice to me is a tool for healing and a vehicle of expression. I find that throughout singing in my career, throughout life, it's been an inspiration to others and a way to uplift others and that's a tool for healing and a vehicle for expression is that my voice has taken me many places all around the world, just from my following it and having it teach me and show me what it hasn't shown me.

Sally:

Yeah. And was there a time in your life when you knew that voice was what you had to go for or sound was where you had to go?

Haji:

My first experience with my voice happened when I was at a small Southern Baptist church in Georgia, which is South of America. And, uh, it was, it was nothing but black folk in the small little church. And they would have some deacons who would stand up on the paupet and they would sing a scripture from the Bible and the congregation would respond and they would sing, "Ah, I know." And I'm in the audience listening as they're singing this. And then from around me, these voice begin to erupt that are coming from a place of joy, of faith, of pain, of belief. And that for me was my first experience of sacredness and sound. And that started my journey throughout the rest of my life, focusing for how that showed up in different cultures and different systems.

Sally:

Oh, I love that so much. And explain to us what is vocal deepening?

Haji:

Sure. So after going to India, and I'll talk about India in a moment, I came back from India with, after sitting with my teachers and just having a whole, um, mind opening, understanding of a different approach, how to use meditation, mindfulness as an approach into your voice, vocal deepening in response came to be a session that I do for people to help them connect with their ability to access their authentic voice. I find that very, very often in our lives, especially in the Western culture, we were brought up singing, 'Mary had a little lamb' and it was popping back in those days, but in India is that there are so many microtones in between the notes that we call our quarter notes and all this, but they really use interesting ways to connect with those in between tones, which automatically makes them connect with their voice in a deeper way. That way they can express in a more authentic way. So I take some of those elements of meditation and mindfulness and toning and breath work and intention. And I've created a package that helps people connect with their voice called Vocal Deepening.

Sally:

I love that. And so what is the main reason people are coming to you for this kind of work?

Haji:

The students or clients that wind up drawn towards myself that I'm passionate about is because I'm passionate about people that have open hearts and they know that they have a gift inside themselves that they haven't been honouring. And from the work that I do as far as honouring the gifts inside, which is the voice, which is the intention to express authentically from yourself as a form of healing, as a form of expression, people see that I'm doing that on the regular for my performances, for the courses I teach, from the masterminds I offer. And they're drawn to that different approach to music. A lot of times some music teachers can be very technically based and structurally based, which has its form or its way in music production. But a lot of times some of those people that I get have had the angry old Russian teacher that taught them, "no it's the wrong notes!" And then their child like desire to play music is being squashed out over and over again for playing the wrong answer or giving the wrong answer or playing the wrong note. So those people come in usually have had some trauma in the past of connecting with music. And one of my passions is creating spaces or container for people to come together and really dive into exploring what their authentic voice and their sound is.

Sally:

I love that so much. And I think that we can definitely apply that to public speaking. You know, a lot of people have a really bad first experience with speaking where they're in front of the teacher and they're being marked on whether they say a particular word right. And these kinds of doubts stay with people. And one of my aims for what I do is for people to, as you're doing, find that joy and connection with speaking again. So if we were to do a little exercise now, this is putting myself on the spot, what is a good place to start with vocal deepening or what would be one of the first exercises you'd get me to do?

Haji:

One of the first exercises that get you to do first is setting an intention. I believe that I work with shoppers when I'm doing my sessions, the vocal deepening sessions. And I believe in state in space when I instruct people and part of space and state has to deal with the state of mind that you're in and the space that you're creating with your thoughts. So the first thing I'll do is start a brief meditation and then allow people to do a guided meditation, to really connect with their intention for this vocal deepening practice. I related to yoga, like when you started yoga practice, you want to have some kind of an affirmation intention or something to, um, lead you throughout your practice. So all of your breath, all of your movements, leads you towards whatever you desire is. Start with the meditation, creating the affirmation. And then after that, we would do different kinds of breath work. And the breath work is just to get really into your diaphragm, get into your body, getting to find the air pockets beneath your diaphragm and your stomach and your sitz bone, and really just connect with your inhalation and your exhalation. So those were the first two things that I would do.

Sally:

Sounds very similar to what I would do as well, because the speaking voice and the singing voice, I guess the voice as an instrument, it all starts from the same place. Doesn't it?

Haji:

Yes. It does the breath, breath in the body.

Sally:

Yeah. The breath being the power for the voice. So Haji, you mentioned that you spent a fair bit of time in India, and you mentioned that one of the things you noticed was there are tones, I guess, within the tones that we might've been brought up with. What else did your time there teach you about voice and the power of our voice?

Haji:

So going into voice, I was there to find the instrument called a sitar. It's a 27 string boarded instrument from India, that's played in a lot of Hindustani music in India. Northern music is Hindustani . And, uh, Southern music is Carnatic. And I was up in Northern India in Varanasi. So, of course, Indian instruments are made to mimic the voice because all of the music is revolved around the voice. So the instruments and times will be mimicking what the voice is doing. So, one day before I got my sitar, I was walking around the city of India or city of Varanasi. And I was having tea with different sitar makers and sitar teachers, just to get a better idea of the differences between how Westerners approach music and how Easterners approached music. And what's this Eastern thing that pulls in this serenity or this tranquility, when you hear it playing like, where's that coming from? So I was sitting with a couple of a particular sitar maker. Then he passes some chai tea and he said to me, Oh, how did you buy? "Haji, music for the Indian is far, far more than just for pleasure or for entertainment. Music for an Indian ,Haji, is food for the soul." And I was like, Oh, I can relate that. And I was transported back to that pew sitting inside of that church in Southern Baptist, in the hearing those people, seeing from their hearts and really expressing the connection of their soul to their voice. And that, to me, made so much sense. One more lesson that I learned, me and Baba Krishna, who was the gentleman that wound up teaching me how to play the sitar, um, he would sit down by the banks with me and we would sing. And then we would like practice sitar. And I was really getting it very quickly because I had a passion for music. And he told me one time, um, I want you to stop. He's not usually very strict of stern. I said, well, firstly, what do you want me to do? I want you to play one string one note for 13 minutes. And I was like, no, I'm trying to play. No, no, no. I want you to play one note for 30 minutes and that's it. So I sat there and played 30 minutes progressingly and by the time I got to the 30, you would recognise that I had such a deeper appreciation for where I was sitting for, how I was holding the instrument for that particular string and the note that it was making. My relationship with it became so much more tangible and a relationship that's built. The same thing I've learned with approaching the voice is that sometimes you have to give your voice of time. Well that's, anything, anything you want to master, get better at, you have to give time, throw lots of time and you can also focus in there too, you know, it'll happen a lot quicker, but that relationship comes through time and intention. And that's one of the things that I have always told my students is they make sure they have that time and that attention. And I broke it down into the three R's repetition relationship and release. The repetition is doing something over and over again, building up, building up to become a relationship. Once you have that relationship, you're able to move your voice around, discover what it is, learn the ups and downs, understand your, your ear, how you hear the notes. And then the release, which is the point that every artist or musician is seeking is to be able to express themselves from their heart in a way that feels good to them and can, doesn't always have to, but can relate to the audience that's listening to it.

Sally:

I wonder if that's linked to, you know, the 'om' sound that you're hold in yoga, that stillness and sustenance of the single note, it might be similar to you playing that same note on the sitars, that appreciation of the repetition of holding the one sound.

Haji:

And honouring it. It's really one thing I learned about anything was that sound healing, my teacher would want to tell me, sound healing is sound backed by the intention of healing. Sound backed by the intention of healing. So if you can get your intention correct before you sing, that's why we do intention setting before we begin, it draws power towards your voice. You amplify whatever that intention is so much greater than just singing, which is great too as well. But that intention is very powerful.

Sally:

Absolutely. And the same way that it was saying music is the food for the soul. There's this great quote that says the human voice is the organ of the soul. I think it's so true. So often when people are struggling to sing or struggling to speak it's because there's that lack of connection. There's no embodiment with the feeling of the voice.

Haji:

Yeah. I find a lot of people that I work with, especially women, have lost their voice. Somewhere along the way they said that I can't do this. Or they got to, they fight. They could sing when their friend told them they couldn't sing. You know, how guys and girls growing up, you know, "I'm going to be the single no I'm going to be the singer and they get it. That's not my lane anymore. So people just have been told they can't sing or they can't do anything. And the soul cut off from the voice. And I know some women that have hardened their voice to be able to be heard nowadays, like, or throughout their life, because they felt like they had to give up their mother's voice, take on his father's voice to be heard in the world. So I get a lot of clients like that too, that come to me that want to shed and find what they call their mother's voice, that sweet voice, the poor, the voice that's up there, their, their past and of who they are. So like all those things come into play with people these days. I'm sure you've seen that have a disconnect from the voice.

Sally:

As soon as you're trying to put on a voice, I work with lots of TV news reporters because I used to be a TV reporter. And that's an area where everybody's just trying to sound how you're supposed to sound. And I always try to bring it back. You know, why are you doing this? What is the story you're trying to tell? How are we reaching the audience through this story? And so I think the theme that we've got going here is it's about feeling the voice comes through you rather than even from you in a way. How can people work with you? This is such a fascinating area.

Haji:

So for the last seven years I've been holding retreats all around the world. Of course it stopped last year. I was going to go to Bali and hold a retreat, but I have retreats, and one particular one that I offer is the Holistic Ukulele Songwriter Immersion, the Holistic Ukulele Songwriter Immersion. And that's where I usually bring people together for a weekend that have never played the instrument before, never written a song, don't have a connection to their voice. And I teach them over that weekend, how to connect with their voice, how to turn their personal affirmations into songs on the ease of they play the ukulele. So you would find me at HajiBasim.com. As soon as you go on the page, you'll see links to all of my sites and that's the best way to get in contact.

Sally:

That's fantastic. I do a lot of work around speaking affirmations, but do you think that if we sing them, they have greater impact.

Haji:

Oh, 100%, 100%. When I was living at Osheroff, we practiced something called Bhakti yoga and Bhakti yoga was where it's called selfless yoga from the heart. You're, you're working for a deity, or whether you see the deity inside yourself on the outside, it's fine. And there was a certain mantra that they will sing all the time. The more you sing it, the more power is coming from your voice while you're singing it just by phrasing. And that's why mantras are so important because there are certain ways you're saying these words that are having internal effects on your body, as well as external effects on the energy or the, or the everything that's around you. So I totally believe that sitting your affirmations bring more life or more joy to your life. Growing up when I was working, or if I was somewhere, it made it a little easier to do what I was doing. And just that connection with my voice, that singing, that resonance, that consistent vibration, brings up something so wonderful, something so tangible for if you do it long enough for a certain amount of time.

Sally:

It's easy to remember. So I used to sing my study notes at school as a way of remembering things, and I think everybody can relate to the fact, they'll forget something that they do need to memorize, but they'll be able to know every single word of a song they've been listening to on the radio. So there's, there's something about music that gets inside us. Doesn't it? I could chat to you all day. This is so interesting. Was there anything else you'd like to add?

Haji:

That I have a belief that there's after profit that says, if you can talk, you can sing. If you can run, you can dance or walking to dance. And I believe that everyone has the ability to sing and connect with their authentic voice. It's just a matter of moving the false beliefs about how you should sound, who you compare yourself to, removing those things will allow you to have more freedom and more sacredness found in your own ability to express.

Sally:

That's so beautiful. And we were treated to your lovely voice earlier in our chat. Would you like to take us out with some more? It was just so beautiful. Thank you so much for joining That Voice Podcast.

Haji:

Sure thing. I'll do one more, I'll just have some water. Okay, here we go. On the spot.